


What in me is dark illumine

by ser_dontos



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ser_dontos/pseuds/ser_dontos
Summary: Some time after the events of His Dark Materials, Lyra receives an unexpected delivery from Jordan College.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HopefulNebula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/gifts).



The package arrived just as Lyra felt she was settling into her new (old?) life in Oxford. It had been directed to Jordan College, originally, and the wrapping was torn and covered with scribbled redirections. Lyra eyed them greedily, hoping to glean some extra information, but the writing of Jordan scholars had become as indecipherable to her as the alethiometer. Pan pressed his sharp little nose to the paper but he couldn’t decipher any more than she could.

Satisfied she could get nothing from it, Lyra tore off the wrapping and investigate the contents of her package. Inside was a collection of opened letters, a few slim notebooks, and a letter to her from the librarian. She scanned it eagerly.

_I write to you in reference to your late father’s estate. As you know, his business dealings were troubled at best and it’s been rather a challenge for the law courts to work out. His financial dealings are still unclear (I am sure you will hear more about this as it relates to you from your father’s lawyers)._

_The disposition of his academic research, notes, and published work has been decided, however, as it is clear he intended to leave them to Jordan. The bulk of this material will, of course, be retained by the college and preserved for future scholars to benefit from. Your father’s studies were quite revolutionary in many respects and will be most useful assets for the library. While cataloguing the bequest I came across some unimportant papers of a more personal nature. Although they will be of no use to our scholars, I thought perhaps they might have some sentimental value for you._

_Yours etc…_

Pan bristled at her side with shared indignation, the condescension dripped off the page like spilled ink. Lyra’s chest tightened and she bit down a curse. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to look at those papers anyway. It wasn’t as if Lord Asriel-her father-had the fondest of places in her heart. Still, if she were to look at them, there was only one place to do it. 

The rooftop at St Sophia’s wasn’t as good for climbing on as the roofs of Jordan. At least, that’s what Lyra told herself. It was too steep, too sharply pitched, she was too aware of how quickly the ground could rush up to meet her, or she fall down to meet it. Pan told it differently, that there was nothing so different about the roof, just that it was her who had changed. That she knew now that she had something to lose. 

When Pan said things like that she wished he would just… Well, she could never wish him away, the terrible ache of losing him was still too close to her heart to wish that. Sometimes she wished he wasn’t able to look her in the eyes though, that he was just another part of her like the daemons of Will and Mary’s world. She would still have to face herself in the mirror though, she didn’t need Pan to tell her that.

Regardless of how right Pan might be, the rooftop was the only place for looking through Lord Asriel’s old belongings, for getting to know her father. Her heart pounded as she scaled the slippery tiles and Pan never said a word, just wrapped himself tightly around her neck. He flowed into her lap as she settled herself astride a ridge of an attic window, stretching back to enjoy the rare winter sunshine that kissed the rooftops.

She looked at the letters first, each one releasing a tiny plume of dust to sparkle in the sunlight as she pulled it from its envelope. There were two letters from Farder Coram, written at the behest of Ma Costa. The first described how the infant Lyra was faring under Ma Costa’s care, and the second was an urgent request for information about Lyra’s wellbeing after she’d been taken away.  There were three letters from the Mother Superior of St Mary’s Convent, the first two describing Lyra’s condition as satisfactory but refusing in no uncertain terms Lord Asriel’s requests to come and visit. The third, dated some months later, demanded that he return his child to the convent immediately, as she _was growing up to be a willful girl and needed the influence of a strong theological upbringing._ Lyra smiled ruefully at that.

She couldn’t smile at the last letter though. It was from her mother, and from the worn creases in the paper she suspected it had been read frequently. She couldn’t bring herself to read it, but some phrases jumped out at her, like _she has the best of you_.

Pan rested his pointed face in her hands, offering her silent comfort. She turned her attention to the notebooks instead. Lord Asriel had not been a committed diarist, but it seemed he had recorded some events of note at sporadic intervals. There was an entry written shortly after her birth, in which he described: _I have seen the child, and she is magnificent. Marisa still claims she could be Edward’s after all, but it is impossible for such a man to create a being like this. She is light made flesh._

Lyra swallowed hard, and paged through the book to find another entry. Most of the other entries were to do with his adventures in the North. There’s a long and thoughtful description of Stanislaus Grummann that took her breath away. She touched the page gently and promised herself that she’d share it with Will the next summer. He never really got to know his father either, how strange that their fathers should have known each other.

There are other mentions of her in the books, but he only ever refers to her as the child. She didn’t know he’d ever taken such an interest in her. Nor that the scholars had given such unflinchingly honest reports of her behavior and abilities. She’d never really thought to know him herself, just hungered for tales of adventure from the wild explorer the scholars whispered about in the quadrangles.

“It’s not fair,” she said out loud finally, a fat tear sliding down her cheek. Pan was there to catch it in his soft fur as he pressed against her, and he didn’t have to speak to tell her it _wasn’t_ fair, but that it was all there was.

 _Asriel is falling, always falling. Sometimes he falls alone, and sometimes he feels others around him. Love and hate. Hate and Love. Marisa and Metatron. Sometimes he feels Gracious Wings swooping by him._ Tell me stories _she asks,_ true stories. _He has stories enough to tell, he feels he could tell stories for as long as he falls and not run out of things to say. There’s one tale, however, that’s truer than any other, and he tells it often._ I did great things, _he says,_ I moved worlds. I tore them apart. But that’s not the greatest thing I did. I had a daughter, and she put them back together. _Every time he tells this tale, he feels a little bit lighter. He’s still falling, but a piece of him floats away, out of the Abyss and back into the world. Atom by atom, he’s breaking free._


End file.
